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Re: Walk Away Split

Yes, it is as easy as it sounds. Be sure there are several frames of eggs, young brood, honey and pollen in your queenless split. Also, add new frames to the outside, you need to keep the cluster together so the brood doesn't chill, gives them a better chance to cluster and survive if there's a cold snap. I usually feed them also, until they're as strong as I'd like.
Regards,
Steven

"If all you have is a hammer, the whole world is a nail." - A.H. Maslow

Re: Walk Away Split

Originally Posted by onefastroadking

First, is it a simple as it sounds and what are the chaces if any that the bees will fail to make a new queen?

There are others with more experience but I'll relate my attempt at it last spring as a brand new beek. Got two nucs last spring, both did well, one went gangbusters. Within seven or eight weeks one of them had nearly filled two deeps and I found a bunch of swarm cells late in the flow. I was about to go out of town for awhile and decided to walk away split it. Didn't move frames, didn't feed, simply picked up the top box with most of the swarm cells and plopped it down right next to the other one. The pair ended up being my two strogest colonies headed into this spring fwiw. It really was that easy, or maybe I was just lucky. Obviously, you would want to make sure that you find the queen or that at least both had eggs to make a new one plus some stores.